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The Eritrea-Yemen Arbitral Tribunal unanimously resolved in its two awards the disputed territorial sovereignty over the Red Sea islands (Phase I, 1998) and the delimitation of an international maritime boundary (Phase II, 1999) in one of the most strategically sensitive regions of the world. This article surveys the progress made by each of the awards in the development of principles and rules of international law in the respective subject matters of the awards. While due attention is paid to the consistency of the awards with the preceding decisions of the International Court of Justice and arbitral tribunals concerning acquisition of territorial sovereignty and equitable maritime delimitation, distinct features, such as rejection by the 1998 Eritrea-Yemen Award of the existence of a principle of reversion of a newly independent state to the ancient title to territory, are also examined. The analysis of the 1999 Award focuses on the complex decision-making process which led the Arbitral Tribunal to equitable delimitation of the Eritrea-Yemen international maritime boundary by means of a single all-purpose boundary. The resultant line substantiates the governing role of equidistance between opposite states. The Tribunal also reappraised the role of resource-related factors and the principle of proportionality. Keywords international arbitration, International Court of Justice, acquisition of territorial sovereignty, modern effectivites, equitable maritime delimitation, equidistance, single line, islands, navigational and resource factors

Castles were centres of the socio-economic life. In the last centuries castles were gradually disappearing from the landscape of Central Europe. It was mostly due to changes in a social order, but also because of natural disasters which happened during that time. In few cases this happened so suddenly and fully that today we even can't point out their approximate location. This is especially true for castles functioning between 14th and 16th century in the Zgorzelec Wilderness (south-west Poland), in places known nowadays as Prędocice, Nowoszów, Pieńsk and Piaseczna. To identify castles' oikumenes authors decided to re-analyse known historical evidences and execute a field research. The latter one was targeted to recognize not only cultural heritage such as ruins of buildings or earthworks, but also changes in the natural environment, such as biotope's transformations. As a result of dual humanistic-environmental studies remains of a medieval building were found in Nowoszów. They were assumed to be vestiges of the castle's oikumene, maybe a tower house, functioning at the manmade isle on the Czerna Wielka river. The other result of the research was identifying other artificial islands, in these cases, on the Lusatian Neisse river that with a big probability contain remains of castles in Prędocice and Pieńsk. Castles in the Zgorzelec Wilderness didn't deviate from other structures of this type and were built in naturally defensive locations. River valleys' neckings and natural elevations within river fluvial valleys were accordingly transformed to better serve its purposes. Rivers and streams in addition were used as an economic base, for example to power hammer forges. A natural environment's transformations caused by castles' inhabitants were so vast, that these changes dated back to Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period to this day are clearly visible in ecosystems of the Zgorzelec Wilderness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the St. Nicholas Church archaeological site (Libkovice, Czechia; the 18th century cemetery) a female skeleton with a stone object in the left iliac fossa was found. It was a cyst-like structure. The measures of it were 54 mm in length and 35 mm in maximum diameter. Within the object fetal bones (long bones, i.e. femur and two tibias, two scapulas, three ribs, vertebrae and other tiny bone fragments) were revealed. The methods used for the analysis were intended to describe the external and internal morphology of the object and its content: X-ray, CT imaging, SEM, histological staining and EDS. The EDS analysis revealed the presence of primarily oxygen, calcium and phosphorus in bone samples, and oxygen and silicon, in stone shell. The measurements of the femur (20.2 mm) and tibia (16 mm) shafts allowed to estimate the fetal age as the 15-18 week of pregnancy. During the differential diagnosis three most likely cases were taken into account: fetiform teratoma (FT), fetus-in-fetu (FIF) and lithopedion. FT was excluded due to the presence of long bones and their proportions, and due to the presence of an anatomically correct spine. Of the other two possible variants, fetus-in-fetu is more likely than lithopedion, due to the lack of a skull, better development of lower limbs, and low calcium content in the shell. The results do not allow to clearly answer the question which of these two cases is the object due to the insufficient number of similar discoveries in the excavation material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to evaluate the content of fluoride in three superficial enamel layers of human teeth obtained from archaeological excavations. Comparative analysis concerned the teeth from burial sites dated to the third millennium BC and 13-15th centuries AD. Enamel samples were collected by acid etch biopsy with the use of perchloric acid and, in the obtained biopsies, fluoride content was determined by potentiometry using a fluoride ion-selective electrode. It was found that the fluoride contents were significantly higher, in each of the three layers of enamel, in the teeth which were older in terms of historical age. This diversity is most likely to have occurred due to the post-mortem fluoride sorption from the surrounding environment, mainly from the soil. The research presented in this paper confirms the possibility of using fluoride determinations in hard tissues to assess the historical age of human remains from archaeological sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]